Merle: A French murder mystery (A Jacques Forêt Mystery Book 2) Read online

  How do I know I’ve got it right this time?

  She blinked as another equally troubling thought came into her mind and diverted her attention to the future and a possible settled and permanent life in France. We need to talk, she decided, and then revised her newly made commitment.

  I just need to tell him.

  It was the loud grating sound and the heavily revved and uneven noise of a vehicle’s engine that shocked Beth into noticing the world beyond her computer and outside her head. She ran to the window as Delacroix’s vehicle veered off the road and into the ditch, the trailer sliding down after it, turning on its side and slewing along the ground until it hit a nearby tree. Almost in a daze she ran back to the desk and picked up her mobile and dialled 112. As the call connected, she sprinted down the stairs and out of the chalet, leaving the door wide open. Answering the emergency operator’s questions, she ran down the slope to the scene of the accident.

  The noise had brought Gendarme Clergue out of his office and when he reached the scene he moved quickly to the driver’s window, reached through and pressed his fingers against Delacroix’s neck and frowned.

  “How long for the ambulance?” Clergue ran around to the trailer, where the cattle were on their sides one on top of the other, limbs askew, and he checked one of the tags. “Rouselle’s,” he said to Beth as he immediately began to dial the number for the farm. Permission given to end the beasts’ suffering, Clergue took out his gun and looked at Beth who turned away and covered her ears. The two shots that rang out to silence the piercing screams of the injured cattle were partially drowned out by the siren as the emergency services turned off the RN88 and into the village.

  ***

  The paperwork for the apartment in Merle all signed, Jacques had a broad grin on his face as he strolled across Mende to where he had parked Beth’s car. Cradled in his right arm was a bottle of champagne, and his next port of call was to be his favourite charcuterie for some wild boar in Armagnac, a taste he had acquired since moving to the Cévennes.

  The traffic was slow and tedious as the final vestiges of the rush hour at the end of the day drew to a close. Out on the RN88, heading north to the village, Jacques powered the car through the sharp bends along the mountainside. He stopped off in Badaroux to pick up some fresh bread and ten minutes later was taking the turn for the village. At the sight of the police tape and Gendarme Clergue in the road he pulled over.

  “Thibault, what’s happened here?” He let the car’s engine idle.

  “It’s Delacroix. He lost control of his vehicle. It’s not clear if he will survive. When I arrived, his pulse was erratic and weak, and the paramedics had to re-start his heart here at the road-side.” Gendarme Clergue folded his arms across his chest, looked at his ex-colleague and shook his head. “He reeked of last night’s whisky, Jacques. It’s good that no-one else was involved.”

  Jacques frowned. “But it’s still a waste of a life if he doesn’t make it.”

  Thibault nodded and moved onto the grass verge to let a delivery van move past the obstruction.

  “Beth saw some of what happened, and I’ve taken a statement from her.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I think so. But I had to kill the cattle Delacroix was transporting, and she was still at the scene of the accident. I think she was a bit shaken.”

  “Yes, that would have upset her. What about Delacroix’s next of kin?”

  “According to Madame Rouselle, there are some relatives in Canada, but his wife’s dead and there are no children, so there’s no-one here in France.”

  Jacques nodded and shifted into first when Thibault put a hand on the open window frame.

  “Are you insured to drive that vehicle, Jacques? I only ask because someone in the village will be asking me and I want to be able to answer truthfully.”

  Grinning, he released the handbrake. “Naturally, don’t worry, Thibault,” he lied. Closing the window, he drove the final few metres to Beth’s chalet.

  toussaint – all saints’ day, sunday, november 1st, 11.00am

  Jacques drained his coffee and returned his attention to the photos of the interior of Aimée Moreau’s apartment that Pelletier had spread out on his desk.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much here,” he said as he quickly scanned them all again. “It’s almost as though something’s missing, but I can’t see what.”

  The outer office door clicked shut as Beth arrived, as previously arranged. With a nod between the two men, Jacques beckoned her into Pelletier’s office.

  “Beth, come in. I think you can help Magistrate Pelletier with his current investigation.” Jacques took her camera bag from her and stood aside so that she had full view of the display on the desk. “These are crime scene photographs, taken yesterday after the body had been removed. I just want you to look at them and tell me what you see?”

  She flicked through the first few. “Good photographs. Sharp.”

  “It’s not the quality of the photographs that I’m interested in, Madame Samuels. I’m just interested in what you can see in them.”

  Beth nodded and then began setting the photos out in rows, grouping them so the shots from each room were all together. She studied the arrangement carefully.

  “It looks a nice place. The decor is light and the furniture is very modern and functional. New almost. But it’s not lived-in, is it?”

  Pelletier glanced at Jacques but his face remained expressionless. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Look at these of the bathroom shelves, for instance.” She bent over and scrutinised the shots again. “Everything is exactly where it should be. Two bottles of perfume in the boxes they were bought in. Mine are all in a drawer, and I always get rid of the boxes as soon as I begin to use the perfume.” She stood upright and addressed Jacques. “No-one has only two perfumes that they wear. I’ve brought four with me, and I’ve got another three in my dressing table at home. You need at least two perfumes just for work. Then you need something for evening and maybe something very light for casual daytime. No self-respecting woman would have less than four or five perfumes that she wore regularly.”

  Jacques frowned. “OK. What else do you see?”

  “Those particular perfumes are quite expensive. The one on the left would cost about £75 at home, so that’s, what, about €85, almost €90? The second one would cost about twenty percent more. So, whoever she is, she must have a reasonable disposable income. And my bathroom only ever looks that tidy after I’ve cleaned it!”

  Beth looked at the pictures again, a deep frown on her forehead. She looked up as realisation came to her. “And where’s her make-up? Where’s all the other stuff you need in a bathroom. All I can see is one bottle of shower gel, where’s her conditioner and shampoo?”

  She collected those few photos together and handed them back to Jacques.

  “Tell me what you make of the bedroom?”

  Beth moved them so that the photographs were separated from the rest and carefully examined each one. “This looks… I don’t know. It looks like a set piece to me. Like one of those modern art installations. Except it doesn’t make sense.”

  Jacques stood back. “That was my first thought too. The duvet is pulled back at the right-hand side of the bed but the phone is on the left bedside cabinet.”

  “I agree. But look at the pictures of the open wardrobe. Everything in there is perfectly arranged and colour co-ordinated. But there’s only one pair of jeans and two casual shirts. All the rest is what I would use for work. It’s almost as though she lives somewhere else but is spending some time in this place and has just enough to get her through the week for whatever she has to do here.”

  “That echoes my own thoughts. So, we need to look for another address, possibly,” said Pelletier as he removed his spectacles and began to examine them for any possible smears or specs of dust.

  Beth moved on to the remaining photos of the combined lounge and kitchen diner. “There are no pi
ctures on any of the walls, which seems strange to me. I’ve got two pictures in the main living space at the chalet with another in the master bedroom. There isn’t a single picture anywhere in this place. I don’t think she lives here, well, not permanently, in my opinion.”

  “Anything else, Beth?”

  She picked up the shots of the kitchen area. “These two empty wine glasses by the sink with the empty bottles beside them. That looks more like a still life painting than just being the result of someone putting bottles and glasses on a draining-board ready to be washed in the morning.”

  Pelletier frowned. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Look at the juxta-positioning of the objects. The bottles set slightly apart at the back, one glass further forward but slightly to the left with the second glass laid on its side with the bowl apparently pointing to something out of the picture.” She gazed at the photo. “If I didn’t know that was a crime scene photo I would guess that someone had arranged those objects and then photographed them for a competition.”

  “Perhaps the glass was accidentally knocked over,” suggested Jacques.

  “Perhaps it was, but how do you explain the positioning of the bottles? That spacing is classic to lead your eye through from the foreground to the centre of the picture.”

  “Maybe the scene of crime officer was just lucky and got the right shot.”

  “No, Jacques, no. Look more carefully. The photo encompasses the whole of the draining board which provides a natural boundary which actually creates a frame for everything else that is there so your gaze travels first to the objects and it remains there because of the boundary. It’s very cleverly done!”

  Jacques took the photo from her and studied it. “Yes, I see what you mean,” he said, passing it across to Pelletier. “What else do you see?”

  Beth, moved the pictures of the shared living and dining area into the centre of the magistrate’s desk. The black brocade curtains in the room were firmly closed and a modern steel standard light in the corner was left on overlooking the circular glass-topped table.

  “Was the light on, or did your people switch it on?”

  “The light was on when we entered the property, Madame Samuels.”

  Beth frowned. “Where’s her computer? If I owned the place, that is where I would work and why would the light be on if she hadn’t been working before whatever it was that happened to her, happened?”

  Jacques picked up the line of questioning as he scanned each of the photos in turn. “And what about her laptop and brief case? She had a dark blue briefcase which looked very smart and expensive?”

  “They were not found at the apartment and are still missing. In fact, there was nothing of a personal nature in the apartment at all apart from the phone on the bedside table and a note on the floor in the bathroom,” said Pelletier.

  “That explains why her handbag is missing, then. That was going to be my next question,” said Beth.

  Jacques thought for a moment. “Not there… Because they were removed or because they were never there in the first place?” He looked at Pelletier.

  “It’s difficult to say at the moment, Jacques.”

  The magistrate smiled at Beth. “Thank you, Madame Samuels. You’ve raised some important questions and presented me with a very interesting point of view. I need to think all this through, but if she does have another address somewhere else, then we need to find it fast.”

  “And what about providing a positive identification of the body? Do you still need me to do that, Bruno?”

  “Yes, if Madame Samuels has no objection, we’ll go to the morgue now and then perhaps you could access the details of the victim’s next of kin from your files at Vaux.”

  “I’ll go to the apartment, Jacques, and start the measuring up for you. Come across when you can.” Beth grabbed her camera bag and moved to the door.

  Jacques picked up his phone and called Michelle from HR in the hope that she might be able to access the information they required using her remote system log-in.

  monday, october 19th, two weeks earlier

  The operations area at Vaux Consulting was buzzing with noise and tension. Hélène’s grating voice could be heard as she shouted at the admin team about missing a deadline and Madeleine was floating between the Director’s office and her own. Jacques could not quite decide how productive she was being. He logged back in to his computer and moved straight to the new secret drive on the network. The surveillance camera was working. He exited and made a mental note to take his laptop home with him and view the footage that night.

  His emails consisted mostly of documents copied to him for information only, so he focussed on the emails from the Finance area containing the phone records for all the company mobiles. These he printed out and started working through them. In his corner of the work area he could watch the others, make notes unobserved, work uninterruptedly, and seemingly be ignored by everyone else.

  He noted that Aimée arrived later than usual that morning. Flicking back through his notebook he checked her previous arrival times, always around 8am or just after. He checked his watch and noted down 9.38am and the date.

  As soon as Aimée got to her desk, Madeleine came out of her own office and stalked across the floor.

  “About Friday, I don’t want a repeat of your open defiance again.”

  The harshness in Madeleine’s voice made Jacques look up, as had one or two other members of the team. Jacques watched as Aimée stopped undoing the buttons of her coat and looked at her boss, bewildered. “Excuse me?”

  “On Friday when I phoned you and asked you for the team’s latest costs analysis you were deliberately prevaricating. I had Édouard at one side of me, Roger Baudin, the Finance Director, at the other side of me and the key stakeholders from my client’s company sat opposite me. When I ask you to do something, I expect you to do it.”

  “But you—”

  “I’ve just given you an instruction, Aimée. Are you going to acknowledge it?”

  The sharpness of Madeleine’s tone brought a general hush to the whole of the work area and Aimée, eyes cast down, began to colour.

  “Yes,” she said in a whisper.

  Jacques was about to step in and comment when Madeleine moved closer to Aimée.

  “Don’t make that mistake again.” She swept around and marched back to her own desk.

  Jacques recognised the venom in her voice. She’d once used the same tone on him when they had been together in Paris. He shook his head to rid himself of the memory and watched as Aimée took off her coat, threw it onto the unoccupied desk next to hers and slumped into her chair. To give her a few moments to compose herself, he went back to his work on the phone lists and noticed that a new envelope had been placed on the corner of his own desk. He opened it and laid out the single sheet of paper in front of him and studied the contents.

  YOU’RE DABBLING IN THINGS THAT DON’T CONCERN YOU.

  BACK OFF.

  His immediate reaction was instinctive, he felt in his jacket pocket for an evidence bag but didn’t find one. Picking it up using the very edge of the paper he replaced it in the envelope and slotted that into his bag as a wry smile crossed his face. Someone is feeling pressured. I wonder who that can be? He glanced around the room.

  The pop-up from the diary on his computer reminded him that he had a meeting with Roger Baudin in 15 minutes. He logged out, collected his papers and ambled over to Aimée’s desk.

  “What was that all about?” Jacques pulled the chair from the empty desk closer to Aimée’s and sat down.

  “Nothing!” Aimée continued to stare at the list of emails in her in-box.

  “I know Madeleine is your boss, but she should not be speaking to you in that tone of voice in front of the whole team.”

  Aimée shrugged. “It happens all the time, Jacques. And it’s not just me, either.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I need to go, but can we talk about this later this afternoon?” />
  Aimée, a resigned smile on her face, nodded. “I’ll see you in the small meeting room at three, then.”

  As Jacques replaced the chair he realised that Hélène had been watching him. Consciously keeping her in his peripheral vision as he moved through the desks he saw her get up and move across to Aimée’s desk. He made a mental note to find out what that conversation was about when he met Aimée later.

  Roger was alone in his office poring over some spreadsheets. His desk was immaculately tidy. Three perfectly sharpened coloured pencils sat side by side within easy reach and by his computer were two mobile phones.

  “Come in, Jacques.” He motioned him to the chair at the other side of his desk, folded the printouts over and placed them carefully in a black wire tray to one side. “So, how are you finding us here at Vaux?” The very briefest of smiles traversed his lean, tanned face.

  “I’m very content here. However, this internal investigation means that I am probably making a lot of enemies very quickly.”

  “It has to be done. What can I help you with?”

  Jacques opened his notebook. “You’ve been with the company for fourteen years, I believe, and during that time you must have been involved in putting together plenty of bids.”

  Roger nodded. “I work on all the bids and it’s myself, Alain and Édouard who make the final decisions about what a bid will look like immediately before it is submitted.”

  “So, if you wanted to leak important information to a competitor, you would be able to with surety about the data you provide and in the certain knowledge that you would be believed, probably without question.”